Every time I go back to re-read Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life, I come away with fresh inspiration to pray and helpful tools to equip me to pray. Our Summit staff team has been reading through A Praying Life as we embark on our Year of Prayer, and toward the end of the book, Miller brings up three ways to pray that should shape every Christian’s prayer life.
1. Pray by using the Word.
We pray more effectively when we know God’s Word. As Miller points out, saturating our minds in the Word substitutes God’s will and desires for our own. It forces us to discover God’s promises and encourages us to grapple with them, believe them, and apply them in our lives. He calls this process putting the Word to work (p. 230).
Surprisingly (to many of us), steeping ourselves in the Bible is the key way to get the Spirit to work in our lives. Throughout the Bible, we see that the Word and Spirit have a dynamic and interconnected role. In our lives, we see this interaction most clearly when we pray Scripture. Praying the Word invites the activity of the Spirit.
Many of us fall off the proverbial horse by pursuing either Word-only Christianity or Word-less praying. Here’s how Miller puts it:
If we believe Scripture only applies to people in general, then we can miss how God intimately personalizes his counsel to us as individuals. We can become deists, removing God from our lives. But everywhere in Scripture we see God speaking to us with a personal touch, prompting us to obey and love .… We need the sharp-edged, absolute character of the Word and the intuitive, personal leading of the Spirit. The Word provides the structure, the vocabulary. The Spirit personalizes it to our life. (248, 252)
Practically speaking, this means we need to memorize Scripture to get it into our vocabulary. My favorite pray-ers are always those who lace Scripture all throughout their prayers. More than hearing the name “God” a hundred times over, God enjoys hearing his words repeated back to him.
How much richer would your prayers be if you committed a handful of verses to memory, bringing them to bear in every prayer you offer? Why not make that one of your goals for this year?
2. Pray by listening to the Holy Spirit.
This goes hand-in-hand with the first way we pray. Miller reminds us that prayer’s primary purpose isn’t to ask for things (though he certainly encourages us to ask!). The primary purpose of prayer is to spend time with God. It’s a two-way conversation—at least it’s supposed to be. But many of us approach prayer with our mouths only. Our ears are stopped up; there’s no space for listening to what the Spirit will put on our hearts.
We shouldn’t just pray by the power of the Holy Spirit; we should pray with the Holy Spirit. He is the one responsible for extending God’s kingdom on earth, and he’s the one who knows the will of God. In prayer, the Spirit reveals what God wants for God’s kingdom, and the Spirit then prays through you.
Admittedly, we need to be careful in this. “Listening for the Spirit” can lead to people interpreting an upset stomach for the guidance of God. But as I read the book of Acts, I see the Spirit speaking and guiding all over the place. The Spirit is mentioned 59 places in Acts, and in 36 of those he is speaking. Maddeningly, Luke (the author of Acts) never mentions how the Spirit spoke. Was it an audible voice? An inner leading? A group text? While the method is vague, however, the pattern is clear.
I am well aware that Acts contains many events that we can’t expect to replicate. God was moving in a unique way. But I have yet to be convinced that the only book we have with examples of how Christians are to walk by the Spirit is filled with examples that have nothing to do with our experience.
So as you pray, try telling God, “I don’t want to just pray to you. I want to pray with you. So move in me as I pray.”
3. Pray as one chosen.
Miller mentions this a little, but I’m actually stealing from another book I’ve been reading for this called A Gospel Primer for Christians. The author, Milton Vincent, makes a point that I had never fully considered before:
When God chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world, he did not merely choose me to be “holy and blameless”; he chose me also to be “before him in love” .… As a chosen one of God, I was saved to pray; and whenever I come into God’s presence to behold him, worship him, or make request of him, I am arriving at the pinnacle of God’s purposes for me .… How can I not feel the infinite sincerity of these invitations, especially when considering the painful lengths that God endured so that I might enter his presence in prayer? (Gospel Primer for Christians, 35, 36)
This truth has re-energized my prayer life more than anything else I’ve learned in years: One of the primary reasons God saved me was to pray for people. I was chosen—before the foundation of the world—because God had prayers he wanted me to pray.
Believer, you are chosen to pray. And part of that means that you have been sovereignly placed in certain situations where you can perceive God’s will and cry out to God, “Lord, fulfill this promise in this place! Lord, let your kingdom come in my family, my neighborhood, my workplace!” Far from undermining prayer, a true understanding of sovereignty moves us to pray. It gives us a divine confidence that we are where we are because God has prayers for us to offer there.
Where has God placed you? Look around at your family, neighborhood, workplace, or dorm: What promise of God will you plead for these people? Ask the Spirit to show you, and take to the throne with boldness!
